Inkling
an online journal of poetry and prose

04/13/09

The Onions

The onions lay in scabby patches in the drying dirt.

I tell my mother they look like shrunken baby heads

and kneel to examine them.

Their outer shell is yellow and spotted in purple pimples.

We stopped weeding soon after

the rain stopped several weeks ago—

stars of milkweed seed float over the heads,

prickle burs and summered leaves covering the ground.

I keep vigil over the onions,

a blanket wrapped around me, smoking.

Mayflies, moths and fireflies lie crusted

against the outside house light;

One night I twist an onion out of its swollen roots

and hold it in front of me next to the moon;

they’re both pockmarked and faceless,

and they don’t hold their own light

like light bulbs or candles or the sun.

I hold my lighter beneath the onion

and watch it glow reddish-orange.

As the bottom of the onion burns brown,

its skin chafes off.  I light it on fire,

holding it up as a pit burns in its side

and drop it on the ground, my thumb numb

from the burn of the lighter. 

I grab for another.

*                  *                   *

I Found an Earthworm in my Bathtub

I found an earthworm in my bathtub this morning,

a clean violet-red earthworm curled up next to the drain

beneath the faucet in a yellow puddle.

The landlord warned us that worms have begun

finding their ways up the pipes this spring

because of the melting snow.

I couldn’t tell if it was alive

because it looked rigid like a little button,

yet soft, almost bloated from too much water.

I blew on it, and the worm shook slightly,

coiling more tightly together. 

I have begun to smell.  I couldn’t take a shower

in the last few days in case worms were in the drain.

But my hair’s sticking to my neck,

my skin beginning to itch.

I glanced back at the worm in its water-bed,

its purplish ring of extra skin wrapped around its body like a scarf.  

The tree outside my window is bare and bright

in the sun, twitching back and forth in the wind.

I looked in the mirror.  My body is as shiny as the little worm’s,

arms as translucent and full of blood. 

Worms have several hearts.